DNF at 27%. I just really could not get into this one. I tried and found it to just be meh. Nothing was happening and I could not see myself forcing my way through the rest of the book.

Grace is going a little stir crazy. The COVID-19 pandemic is still in full swing, and although the regulations are loosening up, Grace is still struggling. She lost her job. She feels sort of aimless. And then her mom, who she does not have a good relationship with, asks to move in with her. Things start to spiral & readers are left trying to figure out what’s real or not.

This book didn’t work for me, and the main reason is the amount of dream sequences. I found myself skimming those scenes because there were SO many and it’s already a trope I don’t really care for. I also didn’t really get Grace as a character; she didn’t feel like a developed character, and it made it hard for me to really care what happened to her. She also has a hobby of cat fishing women on the internet, which honestly felt pretty random.

Overall, I wasn’t a fan of this one but it did hold my interest. I wanted to finish it because I was curious to find out what was really happening.

MOTHERED
@zoje.stage_author
Horror / Murder Thriller

When Grace and her mom, Jackie, move in together to quarantine during a pandemic, Grace begins a slow decent into madness. Then Jackie starts making accusations against Grace about things that happened in the past. Will it push Grace over the edge or will it bring them closer together?

This was such a strange book. Full of twists and turns and with very vivid and gruesome hallucinations on Grace’s part. I would give it 4 out of 5 stars. I would also recommend this to someone with a strong constitution.

Mothered is a deeply weird and heartbreaking horror story about a mother and daughter forced to self-isolate together during a pandemic, and the family secrets and lies that come to the surface as they lose touch with reality.

I’ve read a few pandemic books lately and Zoje Stage’s Mothered is the one that represents it best for me Stage completely captures that feeling of unreality and isolation in that first year of Covid-19 (though the pandemic itself is not identified in the book).

Grace is used to living alone, and having her mother Jackie move in with her is both smothering and even more isolating. The book is filled with unreliable memories and dream sequences as Grace tries to reconcile her childhood memories of her mother with the woman before her now.

Zoje Stage is one of my favourite horror authors, and I love how each of her books is completely different in story, theme, and tone. I never know what I’m getting into when I pick them up, except that her characters are always wonderfully complex, and no matter how messed up they are, I find myself rooting for them.

I love when a horror writer can make me forget I’m reading horror, and for just a moment, I get caught up in the character relationships and think “Oh, they’ll figure it out, maybe everything will be fine.” Her novels feel like Greek tragedies on a smaller scale.

Thank you to Netgalley and Thomas & Mercer for my review copy of this book.

This book overwhelmed me at times and then underwhelmed me at other times...leaving me feeling confused as to whether I liked it or not.

If you are not a huge fan of books that talk about the pandemic, I would not recommend this book. It is extremely COVID centered because it is ultimately why the events that take place in this book happen in the timeline that they do. In a lot of respects, I did appreciate the way this thriller really WENT THERE with some of the mentions of gore and violence. However, I think I might be over the whole 'is any of this actually happening or am I just dreaming?' trope. That being said, if you are a fan of an unreliable narrator, then I would definitely recommend this book!

Again, there are aspects of this book I really did enjoy and others I did not enjoy as much. I do think it was paced really well and has a VERY HOOKING opening chapter with some pretty good twists sprinkled throughout, even if I think most of the "tropes" utilized are overdone (in my opinion).

I'll start off with trigger warnings: Detail of a hamster dying unnaturally, grotesque imagery of an aborted baby (this was a dream but the detail was still on the page), this is a gross book y'all. Also, it takes place during the early days of the pandemic so if you're still traumatized by pandemic talk and those early lockdown claustrophobic days, I'd wait to read this one.

A good note! The cat doesn't die! I was so so afraid the cat was going to dieeeee a horrible death (like the hamster). But it didn't! So that is a RELIEF. Because I can do adult human torture/abuse/cruelty but not animal or child. And this book pushed it a little for me. So I wanted to warn others.

Aside from all of the above, this was a twisted book that I was captivated by. I also started reading Baby Teeth at the same time (only 20% through that though), just immersing myself in horror I guess. lol. You don't know what's in Grace's head and what isn't. I would have preferred the chapters from the past to be marked that way. Even just prefacing the chapters with NOW and THEN, that makes it easier to wrap your head around the contents of the chapter instead of having to restart your brain when you realize it's in the past or back in the present. IDK, just a personal preference thing on that. But I was kept on edge, not sure what to believe for most of this book and that was wild. So many gruesome, horrific images came into my mind with where I *thought* it was going (what's in the box, Jackie?!) but where it ended up was good. Shocking though. And I'm still sitting with that epilogue!!

This is a story about the need for family therapy.

Literally what did I just read?! What an absolute fever dream of a book. If you’re looking for a portrayal of convoluted family dynamics through the lens of forced isolation time proximity- this is the book. I’m going to compare books that call themselves psychological thrillers/dramas to this one loving forward.

Thank you so much Netgalley & Thomas & Mercer for the eArc!

I absolutely loved this one by Zoje Stage! She is fast becoming one of my favorite authors.

How many of us have strained relationships with our mothers and could easily relate to this story? I think this is a book that everyone should read, and I'll recommend it to all.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an early copy of this fantastic book.

This was eerie and mysterious. The way the characters are written left me questioning things about them. The nightmare scenes are written so well I felt tense while reading and the culmination in the end of the bloody and violent murder shook me.

Unfortunately, this was a DNF for me. I have read many wonderful reviews on this book so please do read this one if you plan to, it just wasn't for me.

Zoje Stage’s latest psychological thriller opens on chaos, as a doctor at a psychiatric hospital reads over the dossier of his latest patient:

QUOTE
“I had to do it. She was contagious”--her greeting as she’d opened the door to let the police in. A miasma of decay had wafted out like a poisonous cloud, making the uniformed officers gag. How had she lived with the stench? And why? Most people, if they were going to report their own crime, would do it right after the fact–not wait two weeks while living with the corpse. Her excuse, given days later, was that she’d been terribly ill (too ill to make a phone call?), but the first responders had quoted her as saying, “It wasn’t an emergency. I didn’t want to bother anyone.”
END QUOTE

The identity of killer and corpse are left unknown for the bulk of this story, detailing a difficult mother-daughter relationship exacerbated by the close quarters enforced by the COVID-19 pandemic.This is probably not the best thing to read if you’re getting ready for your own mother to come for an extended visit (as I am!) but does provide an eerily accurate recounting of life during the recent lockdowns. It is also the most honest account of mental deterioration during that period that I’ve read to date.

Grace is a fairly successful hairdresser who bought a house at possibly the worst time ever: right before COVID-19 shut down businesses and forced people into isolation. When her estranged mother Jackie offers to leave Florida and move in with her up in Pittsburgh to help with expenses, Grace is torn. She could definitely use the money, but fears what it would mean for her own personal life. The owner of the salon where she’s spent her entire career has decided to sell the business, forcing Grace to look for work elsewhere and narrowing her social circle. As a result, she spends far too much time online in various questionable pursuits, and worries that having her mother move in with her will cut into her privacy significantly.

This would be bad enough if the women had a good or even decent relationship. But Grace and Jackie haven’t really talked since Grace was a teenager desperate to leave her parental home. Jackie had been a single mom to twin daughters, one of whom had a particularly disabling form of cerebral palsy. While Jackie worked long hours in a nursing home to support her kids, Grace was forced to look after Hope, whose needs only made her more imperious and demanding of her twin. Grace was glad to finally be able to build her own life, free of family demands, as an adult. Jackie’s reemergence threatens to disrupt these carefully nurtured freedoms.

But bills still need to be paid, so Grace figures she’ll take Jackie in on her own terms. At first, their boundaries seem to hold steady. As the days go by though, Grace begins suffering from nightmares that mostly revolve around Hope, even as the stresses of looking for work and trying not to fall ill herself begin to take their toll. Things come to a head when Jackie reveals that the real reason she wanted to move in with Grace is to rehash their shared past. Grace, whose subconscious has already been stirred up enough by Jackie’s presence, is not happy about this at all:

QUOTE
<i>This is bullshit!</i> So many of the nightmares she’d had were a confounding mixture of reality and horror. None of them had been completely true, so why should this one be the exception? Her mother was fucking with her, trying to convince Grace that she was the crazy one. Jackie wanted her to torment herself, to question everything that had happened in the past, and Grace didn’t want to play along.
END QUOTE

Their already fragile mother-daughter relationship falters further as the two women discover shameful truths about one another. Forced to be each other’s only company, the women find a shared madness taking hold, culminating in an act of shocking violence. But who wielded the knives, and who was the victim? And what kind of contagion is truly on the killer’s mind?

Mothered is an utterly harrowing novel of family secrets and betrayals. I felt for Jackie, who did her best under the toughest of circumstances, but sympathized mostly with Grace, who was never really allowed to be a kid and who desperately craved the kind of healthy relationship other women got to have with their own mothers. What could so easily have been a tale of redemption and reconciliation turns, in Ms Stage’s masterful hands, into a terrifying novel of suspense, as the women’s grip on reality weakens, with death for at least one of them the only sure outcome.

Thank you NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for this e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I've read a lot of crazy reviews of Zoje Stage's "Baby Teeth," and as soon as I saw this book become available, I immediately requested it!

"Mothered" is the perfect combination of psychological thriller and domestic horror. Disturbing, compelling, and crazy story!! I couldn't put it down! I loved Zoje Stage's unique writing style. I will definitely pick up "Baby Teeth" to read next!

Mothered by Zoje Stage

Grace can finally purchases her first home it comes right as the pandemic is set into motion. Thrilled to finally be a homeowner she is then let go from her hairdressing job when her boss lets her know she is closing the doors for good. Now she's panicking on how she is going to make her mortgage payments when her mom, Jackie, gives her an idea. Why doesn't she move in with Grace? Now that her second husband has passed away and left her some money she would be able to help pay the bills relieving some of Grace's stress.

Grace started to have weird things going on that felt like a break from reality. She doesn't know if she is dreaming it or its reality. Covid has played havoc on this story at least that is what Zoje Stage presents in this crazy book. Some things are very creepy so it plays well with the horror vibe. Covid in itself was a horror story sometimes even the news added to the horror vibes with people dying. I think the book is coming out in a time that people are ready to read this type of horror story during the pandemic. The pandemic did bring the worse things for some people and there familial relationships being stuck together with limited space can make anyone go bat crazy.

I recommend this book to people who love horror it has the things people look for in a horror book. I do like this author and enjoyed other books from this author. This one wasn't bad but I don't know the pandemic was a horror show on its own. I am looking forward to reading more from this author in the future.

Thank you to Netgalley and Thomas & Mercer for a free copy of Mothered for an honest review. All opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are my own.

Grace is newly laid off and wondering how she's going to pay her mortgage in the early stages of quarantine when her mother offers to move in with her. When she considers their strained relationship, Grace knows it isn't the best move for her mental health, but when the alternative is losing her home, she feels forced into accepting Jackie into her home.

What Grace isn't prepared for is how claustrophobic the pandemic makes everything. As their self-isolation period drags out she isn't ready for the nightmares, the slights, the unhinged accusations and behaviors her mother levels against her as she demands Grace delve into the deepest and most traumatic moments of her childhood. Swimming in a stream of days that become indistinguishable, a tension that rachets impossibly higher, and the feeling that the longer the pandemic drags on only one of them can make it out alive, Grace finds herself wondering just how unthinkable certain actions really are.

"Mothered" is absolutely unhinged and will have readers on the edge of their seats as they race to determine what is real and what is not in the fever dream of a world that Grace and Jackie find themselves sharing. A must-read for those who enjoy a truly twisted psychological thriller, Zoje Stage's novel will haunt readers long past its final chapter. Special thanks to NetGalley and to Thomas & Mercer for providing an Advanced Reader's Copy of "Mothered" in exchange for an unbiased review.

Stylist Grace buys her first house right at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Single and with only one real friend in her life, Grace's only other social stimulation is her "hobby" of catfishing young women online to offer up life advice while masquerading as a knight in shining armor type. Desperate for funds and going stir-crazy in lockdown, Grace decides to take her estranged mother up on her offer to move in to help out. Grace has never fully forgiven her mother for saddling her with much of the responsibility of caring for her disabled twin sister Hope when they were kids. When Hope dies at a young age, Grace and her mother went their separate ways. Now forced together by circumstance, can they get through lockdown without going completely mad?

Pros:
- Stage describes this book as "batshit crazy" in her acknowledgments and I would agree with this assessment. This book definitely kept me guessing throughout in an unpredictable manner.
- Stage does a good job of portraying the ill-effects of lockdown on the mental state.

Cons:
- There's probably too many dream sequences in here, to the point where it seems like every chapter starts with one. They tend to get more predictable when there's so many.
- For such a problematic hobby, Grace's catfishing doesn't get explored nearly as much as I was expecting or hoping. In the end, the solution is so rushed that this plotline could almost have been dropped and not have made too much difference to the plot.

Three stars. Grace is a true unreliable narrator with some really problematic traits, but her descent into madness with her mother is a quite an interesting ride while it lasts.

FFO: Hereditary, lockdown diaries.

**I was given a copy of this book by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to Thomas & Mercer and Netgalley*

It’s a bit confusing. The narrator is unreliable. It jumps from nightmare to reality so much that the lines are blurred. I still really don’t understand the ending. It was good enough to keep me reading but I’m not sure what is the truth.

Mothered is an outstanding, haunting thriller from start to finish. Atmospheric and claustrophobic, the story will creep into your mind and not let you go. The plot is captivating with well-developed characters. The story is fast-paced. This one cannot be missed! Highly recommended to readers looking for their next read to keep them on edge.

Grace has a very difficult and strained relationship with her mother Jackie. It's been that way since childhood when her mother would force her to look after her evil, disabled twin while her mother was out at work. Grace could never do anything right in her mothers eyes and her sister took advantage of that. Years later Grace reluctantly agrees to move her mother in with her during the pandemic......but everything is not as it seems.

This book feels like a slow burn, but something is always happening to make you question what's going on. I believe the author purposefully made the plot confusing to coincide with Grace's mindset. The story is grim on many levels, and often painted a picture of how difficult it is to be a child carer, and the struggles of lockdown during the pandemic.

“I must admit there are ‘memories’ in my head that are curious even to me.”

― Sebastian Barry, The Secret Scripture

Previously published at https://www.mysteryandsuspense.com/mothered/

Let me preface this review by saying I did not read Baby Teeth, Ms. Stage’s debut when it came out but I have heard great things and I was excited to dive into her sophomore novel. In the vein of “what did I just read?” I enjoyed this somewhat baffling but very entertaining novel. Grace, a hairdresser, has finally purchased her new home when the pandemic hits. As businesses close down, her boss lets her know that the salon Grace works at is shutting down for good. She immediately worries how she will make her new mortgage payments. Her mother Jackie, recovering from an illness and recently widowed, needs a place to stay. She suggests to Grace that maybe they should live together, splitting the mortgage payment and other expenses. Without contemplation, Grace accepts her offer, relieving her stress about the mortgage payments.

While the current time period of the novel is the pandemic in 2020, the author currently goes back and forth between now and 15 years ago, when Grace’s twin sister, Hope, was alive. Hope had Cerebral Palsy, but also a mean persona that is taken out on Grace. Their mother, Jackie, is a single mom who is not home mostly so the responsibilities of taking care of Hope fall on her sister. Hope loves to torment Grace while Jackie dotes on Hope and never lets Grace forget who her favorite daughter is. Now Grace and Jackie are living together, while both holding a boat load of resentment towards each other. Who will explode first?

This is a great premise for a creepy but addicting novel with a very unreliable narrator. Grace has many dream sequences that include past and present characters in the book. It does become confusing what is actually real and what is a dream. Many won’t be comfortable with the disabled sister being seen as a villain but it is a genuine part of Grace’s story, unless it isn’t. And the reader is never sure what actually happened to Hope, though Jackie believes Grace is entirely responsible.

This book is a slow burn, akin to watching a pot, knowing it is going to boil over as the water gets hotter. Grace declines mentally almost as soon as Jackie moves in. The reader is never really sure whether Jackie is the problem or something else. Even Grace doesn’t trust what is real and what is a nightmare. The books get creepier as the pages become more dream sequence than reality. The author has written a nightmarish but well-written novel where even the main character doesn’t know what is real. I enjoyed this so much and will definitely look for more books from her. Zoje Stage’s acknowledgements at the end are also well worth reading only to hear how she came up with this book.

I'm conflicted about how I feel about this book. It reminds me of my relationship with my mother and was hard to read at times especially with the nostalgia of early 2020. Some of the imagery in the book is hard to stomach but it's a fast read.